The Farr Side: Daigle sheds label, expands vision

Thursday

Lauren Daigle is a contemporary Christian artist with a massive career in progress, but for her latest album, “Look Up Child,” she’s decided to “lose her religion.”

Before you get upset, Daigle is losing her religion, not her faith. There is a big difference.

Daigle’s debut album, 2015′s “How Can It Be,” has spent 188 weeks on Billboard’s Top Christian Album chart, and counting.

The platinum album’s chart success stems from a slew of popular Christian singles including the title track, which earned a Dove Award for Single Of The Year. “Trust In You” got a Dove for Best

Contemporary Recorded Song Of The Year. She also captured wins for New Artist of the Year, Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. If that wasn’t enough, Daigle also picked up her first Grammy nominations for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album and Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song for “Trust In Me.”

What does she truly mean by losing her religion? It conjures thoughts of Amy Grant, who in the 1990s took a turn from Christian radio formats to mainstream pop and adult contemporary. Her clean, positive messages reached No. 1 on the pop chart, opening an even bigger audience to the contemporary Christian genre.

I was a fan of Grant’s before, but this was the best thing for her in my book. She became instantly relatable with the “Hearts In Motion” album.

Daigle’s journey might be similar to Grant’s. In a recent interview with Beats 1′s Zane Low, Daigle explains her reasoning behind the track, “Losing My Religion.”

“This is an age where I am learning, what I believe in,” Daigle said. ”‘Losing My Religion’ I think is one of the things that I’ve learned and one of the things that I’m embracing is the freedom of taking off the checked boxes, the rules, and all those things that kind of muddy up what faith actually is ... going into the next season of my life in the remembrance of being a child. A child isn’t thinking of realms of capacity. They don’t think, ‘Can I do this or can I not?’”

I get where Daigle is coming from. I am tired of “labels” that divide us, rather than of the spirituality that unites us.

I’ve been learning a lot about Daigle’s new album and was impressed when I heard the first single, “You Say,” on mainstream radio. The song is currently at No. 6 on iTunes.

“You Say” is an incredible track, lyrically, but Daigle’s vocals blow me away. She has one of the best voices on the scene

The rest of the album is equally good. “You Say,” “Still Rolling Stones” and “Look Up Child” are in the class of Adele.— David T. Farr can be reached at farrboy@hotmail.com.

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